Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award Institutional Research Training Grants

The primary objective of this funding opportunity announcement is to help ensure that diverse pools of highly trained scientists will be available in appropriate research areas to carry out the Nation’s biomedical, behavioral, health services, or clinical

The National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), and the Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) provide Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards (Kirschstein-NRSA) to individuals for combined MD/PhD fellowship training. The participating Institutes award this Kirschstein-NRSA individual fellowship (F30) to promising applicants with the potential to become productive, independent, highly trained physician-scientists, including patient-oriented physician-scientists (see http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10823.html) in their scientific mission areas. This funding opportunity supports individual predoctoral F30 fellowships with the expectation that these training opportunities will increase the number of future investigators in basic, translational and clinical research who are physician scientists.

Eligibility

Any individual with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research training is invited to work with their sponsor and institution to develop an application for support. Individuals from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups as well as individuals with disabilities are always encouraged to apply for NIH programs. Although a Kirschstein-NRSA award is not usually made for study leading to the MD, DO, DDS, or similar professional degrees, or for study that is part of residency training leading to a medical specialty, the F30 program is specifically designed to support training in an accredited, combined MD/PhD program. Fellowship awardees are required to pursue their research training on a full-time basis, devoting at least 40 hours per week to the training program.

Citizenship. By the time of award, candidates for the Kirschstein-NRSA MD/PhD fellowship award must be citizens or non-citizen nationals of the United States, or must have been lawfully admitted to the United States for Permanent Residence (i.e., possess a currently valid Alien Registration Receipt Card I-551, or other legal verification of such status). Non-citizen nationals are generally persons born in outlying possessions of the United States (i.e., American Samoa and Swains Island). Individuals on temporary or student visas are not eligible. Individuals may apply for the F30 in advance of admission to the United States as a Permanent Resident recognizing that no award will be made until legal verification of Permanent Resident status is provided.

Degree Requirements. An applicant must have a baccalaureate degree and show evidence of both high academic performance in the sciences and substantial interest in research in areas of high priority to the participating Institutes. When the application is submitted, the applicant must be enrolled in an accredited MD/PhD program at a medical school, accepted in a related scientific PhD program, and supervised by a mentor in that scientific discipline. Applications are generally submitted during the first two years of medical school, but may be submitted at any stage of medical school provided that at least one year of dissertation-stage research training will remain at the time of the expected award date.